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Soil Conservation Is Focus of Iowa Learning Farms' November Webinar

AMES, Iowa —The Iowa Learning Farms’ monthly webinar will be Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 11:30 a.m. Jerry Hatfield, laboratory director of the USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, will be the guest presenter.

The webinar is part of a free series, hosted by ILF, through Adobe Connect. The series is held on the third Wednesday of each month. A computer with Internet access is all that is needed to participate.

Hatfield’s presentation is titled, “Soil Conservation: The Foundation for Efficient Agriculture.” His research focuses on the interactions among the components of soil, plants and the atmosphere for resilient cropping systems in the midst of climate change.

Hatfield received his Ph.D. from Iowa State University in Agricultural Climatology and Statistics, a master's degree in Agronomy from the University of Kentucky and a bachelor's degree in Agronomy from Kansas State University. He was appointed Laboratory Director of the National Soil Tilth Laboratory in 1989, which was renamed to the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in 2009.

Hatfield has served in numerous roles representing agriculture on the National Climate Assessment, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process that received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and lead author on an IPCC special report on the Effects of Climate Extremes. He is the lead author of several reports including the Agriculture section of the National Climate Assessment, the Midwest and Agriculture technical reports, and the Agricultural Indicators effort.